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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



DONE EVERY DAY 



SHje Bag's SHorfc Series 



DONE EVERY DAY 

Straightforward Talks 
on Some Commonplaces of Life 



BY 

AMOS R. WELLS 




BOSTON 
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 

MDCCCC 



34674 




B3 \s-»\ 

,W33 



Copyright, iqoo 

By L. C. Page & Company 

(incorporated) 

All rights reserved 



74125 



Colonial ^resg 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 

Boston, U. S. A. 



CONTENTS. 



I. How to Bow . 

II. The Gift of Gab 

III. Ethics of the Door -bell 

IV. A Good Forgittery 
V. The Tyranny of Sound . 

VI. Masters of the Mail . 

VII. The Art of Walking 

VIII. Reading from a Sense of Duty 



16 
23 
3i 

39 
45 

52 
56 



PREFACE. 

The more frequently a thing must be done, the 
more need that it should be done well. The more 
frequently a thing must be done, the less do many 
men think about it. Often we plan longer, more 
earnestly and conscientiously, for a single unaccus- 
tomed deed that will stand alone in our lives, than 
through all our lives together for some of the acts of 
every day. This book is an attempt to show how 
much depends upon the " points of contact " in our 
social machinery, the commonplaces in which men 
for the most part meet. As samples I have taken 
the acts of bowing, talking, hearing, remembering, 
walking, reading, answering the door-bell, and writing 
letters. If I have been able to say anything helpful 
concerning these eight things " done every day," it 
will be easy to apply the truths to all other daily 
doings. 

The essays included in this volume originally ap- 
peared in The Outlook, The Union Signal, The New 
York Ledger, The Christian Endeavor World, and 
The Illustrated Christian Weekly. I am grateful to 
the editors and publishers of those journals for their 
permission to send them forth in the present form. 

Boston. Amos R. Wells. 



DONE EVERY DAY. 



HOW TO BOW. 

The passing and momentary acts of social inter- 
course are more important than those of longer dura- 
tion, just because they are briefer. The hand-shake 
which is a prelude to a conversation may be cold and 
distant, but the conversation may become so cheery 
that the hand-shake is forgotten. When, however, 
one merely bows and passes on, much has to be done 
in a short time. Assurance of sympathy and good- 
will, impressions of buoyancy and heartiness, the elec- 
tric thrill of friendship, fellowship, or love, — all these 
must be packed into that narrow act. Bowing, there- 
fore, is one of the fine arts. Why not ? To bow well 
one must be master of the shorthand of friendship, 
the stenography of brotherly kindness. Something 
of the nervous skill wherewith flying fingers entrap 
the winged thoughts of the orator must be his, to 
read quickly the mood of his friend, and express 

9 



IO DONE EVERY DAY. 

prompt and cordial response to that mood. These 
folk of stagnant blood, who require an hour's parley- 
to bring them to the beaming point, never bow well. 

So delicate is this art that I can imagine no nicer 
test of the quality of a man than a walk down street 
with him in a town where he has many acquaintances. 
How the great-hearted minister, or the wise and jolly 
village doctor, or the kindly old maid, everybody's 
friend, make royal progresses wherever they go ! If 
every bow were a bank-note and every smile a gem, 
they would be Vanderbilts long before their return. 
On the contrary, should the Gradgrinds fare abroad 
under such a dispensation, their surly necks would 
bring them hopelessly into debt ! 

Why, I know men upon whose lips no words are 
so ready as avowals of human brotherhood and argu- 
ments for social democracy, yet they will stand in 
converse upon these very topics and permit scores of 
those same well-known brothers to pass by, deigning 
no smile or cheery token, only at best a frigid nod. 
"Less bow-wow, brother," I feel like saying then, 
"less bow-wow and more bow ! " 

In truth, it is on the street, and in such incidental 
fashion, that we touch the greater number of lives. 
The president's highway is our open-air parlour, our 
genuine reception-room. And it would speak as 
loudly of a churlish spirit to be glum and absent- 
minded to callers in one's home, as to walk through 



HOW TO BOW. II 

these thronged sky-parlours of ours in a brown study 
or a blue sulk. 

It was my high privilege once to become acquainted 
with a youngster who was just learning to bow, and 
who enjoyed it so much that I would have gone out of 
my way to get a salutation from him. You could see 
the bow dawning while he was yet a long way off. It 
rose in his face like a sun. The hand on the proper 
side was cleared of bundles, ready for action. And 
as you passed, high went his hat into the air, pro- 
foundly swayed his body, and from bashful, smiling 
lips came fitting greeting. I always felt better for 
that bow. 

On the contrary, there is a salute of the fingertip 
hand-shake order, — one which is like the passage of 
an iceberg in the Gulf Stream of our cheery streets, 
— one which hardly depresses the surly head, barely 
lowers the supercilious eyebrow, scarcely stirs the air 
with a frigid word. When will people learn why we 
bow with the head ? We might as well perform the 
salutatory gesture with our toes or our elbows ; we 
might as well remove our gloves as our hats, save for 
the fact that in the head are the eyes and the mouth 
and the muscles wherewith we smile. 

A bow unaccompanied by cheery looks and words 
is like a fine vase with no flowers in it. If the eyes 
and the whole face do not bow, it is slight profit to 
lower the head. We have no time for Eastern, hour- 



12 DONE EVERY DAY. 

long ceremony ; we have nothing but scorn for the 
fantastic flourishes of the dandy ; but there is one 
glass at which all bowing must be practised, and that 
is the beaming, answering eye. You can never win 
that if you stare straight ahead, if your sullen gaze 
seek the ground, or if you steal a fluttering glance at 
your friend and uneasily shift your eyes aside. An 
honest, bright, and steady look from a passing friend 
has often been tonic to me for an entire day. 

There are two personages engaged in every bow. 
There is — if I may coin the word without a suspi- 
cion of euchre reminiscences — there is the bow^r, 
and there is the bow**. And it is as difficult to 
receive a bow in the right way as it is to give one 
graciously. I suppose there is no doubt whatever 
that of the minor vexations of life none is so rasp- 
ing as a chilly return given a warm salutation. 
Rightly is it called a cut, the unkindest cut of all. 

If the old Greeks had had their attention directed 
toward this social sin, with their usual ingenuity in 
such matters they would have devised a fitting pun- 
ishment for this class of sinners in the realm of 
Hades. They would have set such a man to forg- 
ing horseshoes on an anvil of ice, and such a woman 
to cooking with ice for fuel. The bower may have 
all good intentions, but the bowee can thwart them ; 
can quench his flashing eye, smother his cheeriest 
words, and chill his friendliest ardour. And there 



HOW TO BOW. 13 

are many endurable bowers in this world who are 
wretched bowees ; active and cordial in the initiative, 
but cold in response. No one is an accomplished 
bower who is not a skilled bowee. 

There are people who are always surprised by a 
bow. They note it with a start, open incredulous 
eyes, and make flurried return with the air of a con- 
victed felon. The blinders of the horse permit it 
to see only what is ahead, but these persons wear 
blinders which permit of sudden vision only when 
you are at their side. They misname you, and mis- 
name the time of day, bidding you good morning 
when the sun is far past the meridian. 

Every accomplished salutatorian (banish the fair 
vision this word calls up, of curls and white dresses 
and beribboned essays ! ) prepares himself beforehand 
for the salute. He does more than perceive the ap- 
proach of an acquaintance. He bethinks himself of 
some interest of the man or woman, part of whose 
day he is to enter, — some joy or sorrow, sickness or 
recovery, late failure or recent success. Thus he has 
ready some word other than weather-remarks. 

No gibe at these, however ! Two beings out amid 
the snowflakes, the sunbeams, the wonder of blue 
overhead and of green underfoot — some hearty 
word of sympathy with each other's joy at the 
blessed panorama of the seasons is often the most 
fitting word to be spoken. But, none the less, my 



14 DONE EVERY DAY. 

Chesterfield bower must in some way make personal 
contact. There is no better index to the width of 
one's sympathies than these disjointed sentences 
attached to bows. An analysis of them for a single 
day would tell me whether you have merely that ab- 
stract, worthless interest in generalised humanity that 
hopes everybody is well, or the genuine article, that 
concerns itself with Johnny's mumps, Mrs.Broughton's 
trip to the city, and Mr. Capperton's lost cow. 

And these whiffs of courtesy and kindness depend 
much for their effect upon the tone of the speaker. 
Let it be perfunctory and dry, and one of Mrs. 
Jarley's figures might profitably play your part, com- 
bined with Edison's phonograph. No phonograph 
cylinder, however, can catch the blessed interest 
wherewith certain good old ladies of my ken ask 
folks " how they air." Kindly dames ! they have 
better memory for our ills than we ourselves, and 
keep closer tally of our joys ! 

I am glad that I live in a region where every one, 
on passing, nods and speaks to every one else, wait- 
ing for no stupid introduction any more than the 
wayside flower that bows good-humouredly tow r ard 
you as you walk by. Especially are the farmers, 
the field-labourers, and the negroes fond of this hale 
custom. A walk along our country roads in harvest 
time, as the workers return jovially from their toil, 
ought, with its avalanche of cordial greetings, to cure 



HOW TO BOW. 15 

the most confirmed stickler for etiquette and calcula- 
tor of who should bow first that ever studied the art 
of politeness w T ith the head and not the heart. 

There is no grace about it, save the grace of 
geniality ; there is no subservience of etiquette, 
except the etiquette of kindly interest ; but yet I 
must confess that the most cultured and elegant 
salutation I ever witnessed lacks in my eyes the 
charm which the old plantation uncles and aunts 
throw about the little ceremony. They still totter 
about our villages, a few of the old courtly breed, 
that learned finer manners from their chivalrous 
masters and mistresses than the younger genera- 
tion is learning at our democratic schools, and then 
warmed the fine manners in their tropical hearts. 

One of them died in our town recently, — soon all 
will be gone, and this earth will not see their like 
again, — whose manner of bowing ahvays impressed 
me. He was a courtly old vagabond, was old Cuffy, 
and in his ragged coat and red mittens could tip his 
battered hat as elegantly as ever his broadcloth 
master of old. He would stop short to do it effec- 
tively, bow as well as his rheumatic old body would 
allow, call you captain, or colonel, or even general if 
he felt in spirits, turning to pour out after you fervent 
inquiries concerning the health of the ole missus and 
her entire family in detail, if you waited long enough, 
avowing each favourable report to be good hearin'. 



1 6 DONE EVERY DAY. 

Though I often tried to stem this tide by questions 
regarding his own welfare, I never elicited a word. 

Now, did you ever hear how Shrewd Sally chose 
her husband ? She was a charming girl, with hosts 
of admirers, and whenever she felt herself a wee bit 
interested in one of them, she would manage to walk 
down street with him in the daytime. If she found 
him curt in saluting his friends, or lazy, or absent- 
minded (though she should have excused that), — if 
she saw his arm raised always from etiquette and 
never from the heart, and especially if the act was 
performed more courteously toward a sealskin sacque 
than toward a faded checked shawl, and if there was 
never a friendly inquiry to accompany the bow, in 
short, if the young man exhibited any of the saluta- 
tory blemishes I have expatiated upon, she never 
walked with that young man again. That is how it 
chanced that Shrewd Sally is to-day a happy old maid ! 



II. 

THE GIFT OF GAB. 

This is a gift of God, for certainly man does not 
know how to give it. And in most of us it lies 
undeveloped. Some day our schools will develop it. 
Some rare day a happy conjunction of wisdom and 
wealth will establish in some university or other a 



THE GIFT OF GAB. I? 

professorship of conversation, and find a talker fit to 
fill the chair. And to that favoured spot will crowd 
our hosts of mute philosophers, bashful wits, and 
tongue-tied thinkers. In our present colleges we 
are so taught that the conversational extraction of a 
fact, idea, or fancy is as difficult as a similar process 
applied to the beard of wheat, the barbs all pointing 
the wrong way ! This choking, gasping simile is not 
a bit too fantastic. Now I do not know just how 
our professor of conversation will go to work to 
emancipate our tongues, but I am tolerably sure of 
some of the things he will say. When he comes, 
he will find his work greatly simplified, for I have 
made a synopsis of a course of lessons, which he will 
undoubtedly be glad to use ! 

His first lesson will teach his class that conversa- 
tion is worth while. " Beloved mutes," he will begin, 
" you may be apologising for your muteness by the 
old saying : < Speech is silver, silence is gold/ Be it 
so. But note that a single silver dollar will do more 
work, and represent at the end of a day the transfer 
of more value, than a double eagle in a year. 'Deep 
waters run still/ the proverbs continue. But they 
are not doing any good then. Set the deepest river 
to run a mill-wheel, and it plashes like a little brook- 
let. 'An empty kettle makes the most noise.' An 
empty kettle makes no noise at all unless you 
hammer it. Not till it is full and put to work over a 



l8 DONE EVERY DAY. 

stove, does it begin to sing. No, my dear mutes, 
cease consoling yourselves with Carlyle's apostrophies 
to the Great Realm of Silence. No man yet had 
anything worth telling this world and left it untold. 
A ' mute, inglorious Milton ' ? That were not merely 
inglorious, but incredible. God does not waste his 
messages any more than his matter. * Murder will 
out,' but all things good, too, bring their own utter- 
ance. You have been silent, my shrewd scholars, 
that fools might hold you wise ; and wise men call 
you fools. 

" And have any of you ever said, ' I know what I 
want to say, but can't say it. I can't express my 
thoughts ' ? My charming, deluded mutes, that is 
because you have no thoughts. You mistake emo- 
tion for thought. Moonstruck lovers, tongue-tied 
and lock-jawed by 'darts through the heart, these 
have feelingSy hosts of feelings, that they cannot 
easily express. It is hard to translate feelings into 
words. That is the office of the highest poetry. 
But any thought worth the utterance seems to come 
direct from the higher world, and to gather in its 
downward rush a momentum that soon forces it from 
the mind through the door of the mouth. Fie, fie, 
ye silent ones ! Your muteness is token, not of 
wisdom, but of emptiness. It is a thing to be 
ashamed of, and good talking is a thing to be proud 
of. Thus ends the first lesson." 



THE GIFT OF GAB. 1 9 

In his second lesson our professor of conversation 
will teach his class that talking is far more than 
words, or even thought. u But you will quote Shake- 
speare, will you ? Who was it that said, < Words 
without thoughts never to heaven go ' ? That was 
said by the paltry king of Denmark, and is as false 
as he was. The commonplace conversation of lovers 
is proverbial. Think you those words without 
thoughts never to heaven go ? Their wings fly 
straight upward as fire from the altar. There is an 
unspoken language which makes eloquent the ( patter 
of words/ as sunshine transforms the pattering rain- 
drops into an iridescent arch of promise. The true 
talker must never forget that. 

"Why, you can never close the door against a 
word with a man behind it. What is the difference 
between one of Shakespeare's sonnets read by a lover 
and by a tax-collector ? Let Webster speak behind 
a curtain, and to that curtain all souls will turn. 
What if an elocutionist made the most perfect imi- 
tation of Webster's tones, accents, and inflections ? 
Oh, words of themselves are meaningless things ! 
Say ' birthplace ' to a man from Switzerland, who does 
not understand English, and it will not move him. 
Explain the thing which the word embodies, and be- 
fore his tear-veiled eyes will rise the vision of white 
mountain peaks lifted into the blue in solemn com- 
pany, and of a rude cottage half-way up the steeps, 



20 DONE EVERY DAY, 

where the green is overhung by the white. The 
sheep-bell will tinkle down the slope, the shepherd's 
song will echo from the hills, and the lofty heights 
will be fingers of a giant hand pointing his soul to 
heaven. 

"Not words or thoughts make the talker, then, 
but what stands back of both. For talking is the 
transfer of life. How to talk ? Let your life speak. 
This does not mean to open your soul to the world 
as a pedler opens his pack, but as an innocent girl 
lets her heart make eloquent her face. Tom Raisin, 
the grocer, may read ' In Memoriam ' to his barrel- 
head audience, and he will not stir their hearts as by 
the announcement that the price of butter has fallen. 
If I care for metaphysics, my metaphysical talk will 
draw my hearers with it ; if for reaping-machines, 
upon reaping-machines I shall be eloquent. If I am 
wont to breathe air, I can only squeak in an atmos- 
phere of hydrogen. Talking, effective talking, my 
attentive mutes, is the outcome of living. That is the 
second lesson." 

And finally will come a lesson on the long and 
short of talking. " Brevity is the soul of wit, dear 
tongue-tied folk. That's the reason, by the way, 
why long men can never be funny. ' It will be given 
you in that hour what you shall say.' Oh, why is it 
never given us when to leave off saying ? Your best 
talkers are masters of epigram-making, an art nearly 



THE GIFT OF GAB. 21 

lost. Strange that the mail-coach trundled away, 
and left to our quick transit age is Johnsonian pro- 
lixities ; that, having Pitman's shorthand, we have not 
Bacon's short tongue. I do not mean that in his 
desire for brevity our talker is to fall into our nine- 
teenth-century, polite-society, timid-lazy dread of an 
argument. No, he will love the keen flash of word- 
swords in the clear air of thought, the curvetting of 
the steeds of evasion, the bright glitter of the armour 
of facts, the waving plumes of fancy, the final un- 
horsing shock of the Q. E. D. And he will groan in 
spirit as his hostess, at tournament height, dexter- 
ously switches the conversation off on a side track, 
fearing, forsooth, a quarrel, where was only a con- 
test ! 

" And, too, ye mute ones, to be good talkers you 
must be good listeners. Men hate tongue-tyranny. 
It must be, however, an active, not a passive listen- 
ing. Such a listening as the dewdrop gives the sun, 
flashing back his light in a myriad glorious colours ; 
such a listening — the image is absurd — but just 
exactly such a listening as the deep-eyed dog gives, 
with ears, eyes, and wagging tail responsive to a 
word ! 

" Moreover, you must be on good terms with total 
silence, that terrible bugbear. We moderns are so 
ready to translate enthusiasm into noise that it really 
seems necessary, if one goes into anything with all 



22 DONE EVERY DAY. 

one's soul, to come out of it with half one's throat. 
To be sure, silence is a severe test. Those friends 
are truly knit with bonds of steel who can sit together 
mutely for half a day without constraint. When the 
friendship is of cobweb, these spiders of words must 
spin back and forth continually, or the frail bond will 
break. A holy life, prayerless because it has become 
itself a prayer ; the teeth-clenched battle-frenzy, ly- 
ing in breathless ambush ; the applauding hush of a 
spellbound audience ; these, and all silences, speak 
louder than words — when they speak at all. 

" But there is a dead silence. Wherever warmth 
of feeling would naturally burst into the flame of 
words, silence means the coldness of indifference. 
Ah, the horrible moment when the talking wavers, 
congeals, and the benumbed assembly sits helpless 
as if the conversation were a wintry pond, and they 
had been solidly frozen in ! Then must the good 
talker become a chatterbox, a chatterbox with a pur- 
pose, whose cheer will shame the ice to vapour. In 
such an emergency he will not count it a disgrace 
to discuss the weather. No ignoble subject, that — 
the ever fresh face the world puts on, now veiled in 
tears, now wreathed in smiles, now blushing as a 
young bride on her wedding-day, now stern as Lear 
out in the tempest. ' Good morning ! Splendid 
weather, this ! ' ' Good morning to you ! Glorious ! 
Glorious ! ' Such speech is sign of a wider sympathy 



ETHICS OF THE DOOR-BELL. 2$ 

with nature than the poets give the rest of us mortals 
credit for." 

Having reached this topic of the weather, my pro- 
fessor of conversation will probably deem it wise to 
stop, and proceed to the practical application of his 
principles by setting the members of his class to 
talking together ; which, if it is a coeducational 
college, will not be at all difficult to accomplish. 



III. 

ETHICS OF THE DOOR -BELL. 

At the centre of the coat-of-arms which the 
Twentieth Century should be constructing for him- 
self should be placed a door-bell. About few things 
do so many of the joys and sorrows of our modern 
life congregate. Its handle is seized by the postman 
and by the telegraph messenger. The crafty agent 
gives it a non-committal pull. One dainty glove of 
the caller clasps it, while the other clutches the card- 
case, and the fashionable visitor hopes that a bit of 
pasteboard may end the matter. Tramps ring on it 
their supplicatory challenge. Friends with it claim 
hospitality. It stands for our American accessibility 
of every one to every one else, — the blessed, annoying 
expansion and complication of our social life. 



24 DONE EVERY DAY. 

Edward Everett Hale has amusingly described the 
migration of a family to the wilderness to escape 
from door-bells. The day is not far distant when 
the entire human race — the civilised part of it — 
must go off somewhere, and stay until the tantalising 
wires are rusted through, and the unmerciful steel 
hemispheres have lost their resonance for ever. For 
mortal nerves can hardly endure this ceaseless tintin- 
nabulation much longer. Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling, ting- 
a-ling, from the early vegetable-man to the late caller 
or the midnight messenger-boy. One never knows 
what household plan it may interrupt, what train of 
thought throw off the track, what sweet dream startle 
into real terrors. 

I can think of but one occasion when its din is 
ever welcome. That is when the dear one has risen 
from the dreary sick-bed, when the long suspense is 
over, and the muffler can be taken off. How like a 
salvo of happy cannon is its cheerful peal then ! 

In many rural districts, the small boys, keeping up 
an old custom, for there is no better antiquarian than 
your small boy, on All-hallo we' en fasten a discreetly 
long string to the door-bell, and from giggling ambush 
in the shrubbery watch the mystified housewife as 
she peers into the darkness, wondering " who was in 
such a hurry as all that ? " But, in parable, this All- 
hallowe'en emptiness of door-bell appeal endures 
throughout the year. People who want to make a 



ETHICS OF THE DOOR-BELL. 2$ 

market of our front door-step, beggars, formal callers, 
— half of our door-tendance is fruitless as the metallic 
vibrations which command it. And our harrassed 
nerves and weary feet and throttled purposes prompt 
us to parody a certain all too familiar poem, and cry : 

" Door-bell shall not ring to-day," 

even though my bleeding hands must hold it ! 

But the majority is too strong for us. With all 
the world pulling at the bell, what can we do ? 
Either emigrate with Doctor Hale's family, or dance 
submissive attendance. Now there is a wise proverb, 
approved by all good people, to the effect that what- 
ever is worth doing, or must be done anyway, is 
worth doing well. Upon that proverb I base my 
plea for door-bell ethics. If it is fixed in the order 
of things that one half of mankind shall ever be 
dangling on the bell-handle and the other half running 
to open the door, let us consider how to do it as 
gracefully and profitably as possible. 

Whoever would lay down a system of door-bell 
ethics must have regard to the three factors in the 
matter, — the bell, the person outside, and the per- 
son inside. Following this scientifically exhaustive 
division of the subject, let us first consider the bell. 

If we must have bells, let us have bells that can 
be rung and that will give to the ringer some evi- 
dence that they have been rung. The door-bell is 



26 DONE EVERY DAY, 

the voice of the house. I know some fine mansions 
whose feeble bells always remind me of the effemi- 
nate voice of a big man I once knew. Others seem 
to end in a vacuum, while others yield a faint tinkling 
from some posterior region, like an echo from the 
Cliffs of Uncertainty. And not only does the house, 
however imposing the architecture, become inconse- 
quential when endowed with such an utterance, but 
a like fate befalls the unfortunate visitor, who, no 
matter how bold and decisive his ordinary bearing, is 
made to announce his approach in a voice like a timid 
child's. 

Then, too, it is somewhat provoking, after one has 
solved the Chinese puzzle of the front-gate latch, to 
be confronted immediately with another in the shape 
of a new style of door-bell. I am convinced that 
there will yet have to be an international congress 
to decide upon a uniform door-bell and front-gate 
latch. Shall we pull the knob out or push it in ? 
Shall we rotate the handle or pull it up or down ? 
And in the meantime we are in danger of breaking 
the apparatus or the third commandment. In the 
latch-string days they hindered entrance with Gordian 
knots ; but now, with Gordian invention. Let us not 
permit the Patent Office to beguile us into patent dis- 
courtesy. 

One word about the surroundings of the door-bell. 
When the high-priced man plans your house for you, 



ETHICS OF THE DOOR-BELL. 27 

do not let him omit the shrine of Hospitality. What 
is it? It is the porch or the storm-door. In this 
safe haven, while the elements rage without, we 
gratefully remove our hats and lower our umbrellas, 
and ring on the door-bell a paean of praise to our 
host. It may not harmonise well with the archi- 
tecture of your house, but it will place a rare 
block in your celestial mansion. Leave unprotected 
door-bells to Polyphemus, and such cold-hearted 
entertainers. 

But if that is the shrine of Hospitality, the cheery, 
well-lighted hall is her high temple. At the entrance 
of an ancient house stood a statue of Hermes, the god 
of travellers. In our Christian homes, I am sure that 
a bright light in the hallway is no unacceptable offer- 
ing to the Father of Lights. The nature of the visit, 
whether it is to be constrained or easy, dull or jolly, 
is decided, you know, during the two minutes when 
the guest is taking off his wraps. 

The second factor is the person outside. How 
impossible to separate one's character from anything 
one does — even the ringing of a door-bell ! My 
caller need send in no card. That importunate peal 
signifies Doctor Eager. That is Miss Timid's little 
tip-tap. And those three jerks can mean no one but 
Master Hurry. It is not at all every one that knows 
how to ring a door-bell properly. I do not know 
which is worse, — the dainty pull which scarcely dis- 



28 DONE EVERY DAY, 

turbs the spider in the bell's brass dome, or the im- 
perial pull which disturbs the entire neighbourhood. 
One results in the caller's leaving, unheard and angry, 
and the other in our angry attendance. 

Either, however, is to be preferred to that sum- 
mons of impatience which repeats itself while we 
are arising from our chair, and once again while we 
traverse the length of the hall. Strange, that people 
who would never insult us with their voice, should be 
so discourteous with our door-bell ! You have heard 
the not incredible story of the philosophical English 
doctor, who wrote an entire volume while waiting on 
his patients' door-steps. If you are addicted to the 
ring of impatience, begin to court the Muse, and 
compose at least one sonnet between your pulls on 
the bell. 

But the crowning virtue of the person outside is to 
know when to ring at all. Among the first of our 
unformulated social beatitudes is this : " Blessed are 
they who know when to visit, for they shall be invited 
to come again ! " Knowledge of a person's busy 
days is a preliminary to calling as necessary as an 
introduction. Infelicities of behaviour or of speech 
mar fewer friendships than infelicitous ringing of 
door-bells. And until we know our friend well 
enough to know when our visitation will be a joy, 
and not a visitation in the more uncomplimentary 
sense of that word, let us stay away altogether. 



ETHICS OF THE DOOR-BELL. 29 

And finally we come to consider the person on the 
inside. If the exterior virtue is patience, the interior 
excellence is promptness. A memory of my child- 
hood will ever remain vivid. I was canvassing for 
some child's magazine, and felt, as all agents feel, 
that I was an outcast from humanity. I had received 
all degrees and varieties of rebuffs, and the world was 
very black, and life not worth living, when in a cer- 
tain swiftly opened doorway stood the vision of a 
smiling young lady, who said at once, in tones whose 
heartiness makes sweet vibrations in my memory 
still, " Come right in ! " They did not subscribe to 
my magazine, but, as I went away, the world was 
bright and life worth living again, and I registered 
a vow which I still occasionally think of, that my 
front door should be an equally gracious place. 
That was a very heretical family, I afterward 
learned, but I shall always hold their front door 
very orthodox. 

I cannot help thinking that, in memory of their 
tardy door-bell attendance on this earth, Saint Peter 
will be judiciously slow in admitting through the 
heavenly portals some otherwise excellent persons. 
And those who in their life allowed their servants 
to perform that gracious office — will the good saint 
receive them in person, or send a subordinate ? And 
I wonder if we wouldn't make more efficient use of 
our opportunities, (" opportunity," you know, means 



30 DONE EVERY DAY. 

an "open door,") if we were more zealous openers of 
these wooden doors of ours. 

Indeed, I begin to see that this difficulty, like so 
many others, is conquered by interpreting it. Trans- 
late the door-bell's jangle into terms of Christianity, 
and it makes the sweetest music. I would not lose 
one strain of it, even the book-agent's. It stands now 
not merely for the tiresome accessibility of everybody 
to everybody else, but for neighbourliness and friend- 
ship, for helpful contact with people one would never 
meet did they not seek to turn one's front door-steps 
into a market ; in short, for a thousand blessed 
chances to put Christianity into practice. It is the 
parable of human intercourse daily read out to us 
from the "New New Testament." 

If we knew that in the celestial hierarchy was a 
certain " Angel of the Door-bell," — a testing angel, 
who made occasional experimental pulls at our bells 
for proof of our practical Christianity, — would we 
change any of our habits in that case? Would 
we urge others to go to the door or go slowly and 
surlily ourselves ? Ah ! in most real truth we are all 
"door-keepers in the house of our God." Let us con- 
secrate our door-posts with the warm, red love of Him 
who is the ever-open Door. 



A GOOD FORGITTERY. 3 1 

IV. 

A GOOD FORGITTERY. 

My blessings on the old lady who gave me this 
title ! " I've a poor memory, but a good forgittery," 
said she. Happy old soul ! 

You know Samuel Rogers's poem, " Pleasures of 
Memory " ? Our grandfathers bound it up with 
Campbell's " Pleasures of Hope," and Akenside's 
"Pleasures of the Imagination, " and our fathers 
gave this "Book of Pleasures" to our mothers in 
courting days, when hope and imagination, at least, 
if not memory, held bliss galore. No one cares for 
poor Rogers nowadays, but if he had only added to 
the trio the Pleasures of Forgetting, how we would 
all read him ! 

And yet we are ashamed of a good forgittery. 
What school drill develops it ? What sermon 
preaches the duty of oblivion ? Professor Mnemos- 
yne enrolls his hundreds in classes for the study 
of his Great Memory System. Where is Professor 
Lethe? "The Art of Never Forgetting," — that is 
the alluring title of an advertising pamphlet which 
has won the tuition fees of thousands. 

But the comfort of a good forgittery ! There 
comes a time to every housekeeper when a bottle 
of water is worth ten bottles of ink, and many a 



32 DONE EVERY DAY. 

time to every soul-keeper when a flask from Lethe's 
stream were more to be desired than all the writing- 
fluid of the recording angel. The world has scrawled 
upon our brain-tablets memories of harsh words, un- 
just deeds, scowling skies, petulant whimpers, lifted 
eyebrows, cold faces, all in very black ink, and we 
have lost the sponge ! The art of forgetting at will ? 
Let us hope that some great philosopher of the 
future will develop it. Until he comes, may not an 
ordinary human being venture upon a few hints ? 

In the first place, my dear Fretter, don't be 
ashamed to forget your worries. Be deaf to the 
sage's cry : " Reason them down ! Argue yourself 
happy ! " Suppose you are stifled in bad air. 
" Go to ! " cries the chemist. " Let us purify this 
air. We will absorb the carbon dioxide. We will 
set free inspiring oxygen. Fetch me my retort ! " 
But in the meantime you smother. So philosophy 
could transmute your ill to good, could prove the 
value of the drizzle to the plant, of the cold shoulder 
as a means of grace to your soul. So you would 
become at length optimistic, through logic and dis- 
comfort. But common sense is optimistic brightly 
and readily, through oblivion. Ignoble, do you say ? 
Why, every one would call that tired man a fool who 
should painfully concoct a soporific, when the nearest 
bed would give him sleep, yet many men think hap- 
piness unworthy, unless one toils for it. 



A GOOD FORGITTERY. 33 

And in the second place, my dear Fretter, possi- 
bly your forgittery is poor, because your memory is 
too good. You have probably been taught that 
every fact contributes to your science. You have 
probably learned to delight in those indiscriminate 
shovelfuls of truth which are worse than emptiness. 
Dear me ! if all meat is food to our palate, — novels 
of MacDonald and Ouida, history of the Tartars or 
the preeks, — how can we learn wisely to receive 
and reject emotions and unbidden thoughts ? 

In the last place, you have certainly neglected, 
my dear Fretter, to develop and train your forgittery. 
And now you are indignant. " I can't control my 
feelings ! When you have lived a little longer in 
the world, young man, and have had some of my 
bitter experience, you'll not talk such nonsense ! " 
That is as fretful and foolish as the child's " I 
can't ! " 

You can keep from opening your hand, can't you ? 
eat or not at your pleasure ? cheat and steal, or re- 
frain, as you will ? So close is the connection 
between this brain and ourselves that we forget that 
the brain is just as much one of the soul's instru- 
ments as the hand or the tongue, — an upper ser- 
vant, but still a slave. 

And yet in some ways we do train this slave. We 
teach him to store away, compactly and curiously, all 
manner of rubbish, but entirely neglect to teach him 



34 DONE EVERY DAY. 

the skill and duty of housecleaning and keeping 
clean. Of course, I know that all the natural cur- 
rents of this world flow in upon the mind, and it is 
hard to sweep the rubbish out against them. But 
it can be done. Let me give you my three rules 
for forgetting. They are comprised in the mystic 
words : " Discrimination, Occupation, Supplication." 

Discrimination. Every man's mind is his castle. 
Fools give Dame Circumstance the key. They keep 
open house to her tribe. A rap at the door is pass- 
port to entrance and entertainment. In they throng, 
priest and tramp, king and cutthroat, and the first- 
comer gets the best room. My dear Fretter, learn 
the use of the drawbridge and the moat. Scan new 
arrivals through the portcullis bars. Send the devils 
away and let the angels in. But in some unguarded 
moment the devils will enter. Then, 

Occupation. Crowd them out with better folk. 
Especially take to heart, my languid Fretter, this 
rugged maxim : Physical hurry best cures mental 
worry. You have probably run too much to head. 
You have no long roots buried in the moist 
soil. Every sunbeam wilts your surface growth. 
Gladstone's wood-chopping, Tolstoi's ploughing, are 
no small part of the lessons those great men teach. 

Why, do you know the man of the future whom 
evolution is to bring forth, — evolution and labour- 
saving machinery and the higher education ? A 



A GOOD FORGITTERY. 35 

diminutive creature, spindling legs and arms, hands 
just able to grasp a pen, dainty jaws, poor teeth, 
bald head, near-sighted eyes, but with a mighty 
forehead, and an absolutely unexampled cranial capa- 
city. That is, he is to be in perfection what so 
many are already becoming, — a machine cunningly 
devised to generate immense volumes of high-pres- 
sure steam, but with the safety-valve omitted. 

Men ought to be built like the Deacon's wonder- 
ful " one-horse shay," strong all over, warranted to 
run a hundred years to a day, and go to pieces all 
at once and nothing first ; no long-drawn-out agony 
of patching up an organ here, a nerve there ; no 
weary dragging around by overworked halves of 
bodies of decrepit other halves, with squeak and rat- 
tle and sway. My man of the future must have a 
superb set of teeth to cut up fuel for that superb 
thought-generator, and limbs which can draw off its 
superabundant energy, or I shall expect an explosion 
as certainly as if I had put a fulminating cap in the 
poor creature's upper story, with a lighted fuse at the 
end of it. 

I do not recall a single instance of a man busy 
habitually at manual labour who seemed unhappy. 
The hand-worker has a sense of creation. Contact 
with Nature has given him somewhat of her large 
outlook. He seems transported into a wider life, 
with his petty worries far behind. We overwrought 



36 DONE EVERY DAY. 

thinkers, careworn men of figures and stocks, anxious 
household Marthas, how amused and disgusted we 
are by the contempt with which a farm-hand or a 
kitchen-maid receives our mental woes ! A man who 
is seeing with exultation of soul a trim house grow- 
ing skyward under his hammer and saw, glistening 
with fresh wood and firm with its accurate joints, 
has scant sympathy with the parson's grief over a 
chilling prayer-meeting, with the teacher's groaning 
anent the mental inertia of his pupils, with his wife's 
fears concerning the next payment on the mortgage, 
or the wildness of their son John. All these worries 
seem immaterial and unsubstantial by the side of the 
solid joy his hands have builded. The self-satisfied 
optimism of Nature, with whom he has been so inti- 
mately at work, has entered his soul. 

Who that has tried it will deny the efficacy of 
this antidote to worry ? Some brisk, physical task, 
entered upon, it may be, with shrinking and loathing 
and a heavy heart, — that is a sad sorrow which this 
will not cure ; that is a deep-seated mental malaria 
which will not out with the perspiration ; those are 
well-furrowed wrinkles which Nature's loving hand 
cannot smooth away. 

But there are some papers which receive too faith- 
fully the impression, and no complete erasure is pos- 
sible. And there are some sorrows which write with 
indelible ink. The recourse then is to mark out with 



A GOOD FORGITTERY. 37 

other ink. Do you know that the best way to blot 
out a word is to write over it some other word ? If 
physical work will not erase your worries, you may 
easily blot them out with fresh thoughts overlaid. 

Here comes in play the blessed faculty of reading 
and study. In the good time coming, when that 
supersensitive, dainty product of human evolution 
shall have caused also, by the law of supply and 
demand, the appearance of the physician of the 
mind, to supersede our doctors of the body, books 
will be ranked high in the materia medica, and libra- 
ries will be added to the apothecaries' shops. For 
the careworn housewife with humdrum duties will be 
prescribed Dickens and Scott, Charles Reade and 
Thackeray. For the nervous scholar, worn out by 
failure or success, the druggist will wrap up a copy 
of George MacDonald, or Charles Lamb, or Emer- 
son. For the quivering man of ledgers and day- 
books the wise physician will order a course of 
treatment in history or science. 

It is perfectly possible for any one, in these days 
of books, to fit up for himself the withdrawing cham- 
ber of some study, however humble, in history or 
science or literature or art, the furnishing and adorn- 
ing of which will become an increasingly attractive 
work, and which will serve as his all-but-impregnable 
castle of defence against ordinary human worries. 
Each for himself, however, must learn what task, 



38 DONE EVERY DAY. 

physical or mental, is best fitted to withdraw him 
from his vexations. But for all, occupation is the 
best mode of forgetting. 

This will not be easy. It means the taming of 
those intangible, mysterious thoughts and emotions 
which we must conquer and capture, having never 
seen or touched them, upon which we must learn to 
play, having been so long played upon by them. 
Many a time, at some unexpected moment, the ex- 
pelled cares and worries will sweep back upon us in 
a triumph all the more bitter for our temporary dis- 
enthrallment. There will be needed many stiffen- 
ing s of the spiritual backbone. There will be needed 
even the supreme conviction that happiness is a duty, 
that peace and equilibrium of soul is the only worthy 
condition of spirits born for the calm reaches of 
eternity. 

Yet, with all man can do by work and will to hold 
in thrall his spirit, there are many sorrows too strong 
for him, many defeats too bitter for unaided recovery. 
Happy his lot if through the unworded mystery of 
prayer he can summon Omnipotence to his aid. 
Natural means must be plied at first, for not even 
the old pagan would have the gods help the wagon 
out of the rut, till the wagoner had put his shoulder 
to the wheel. But if work and will both fail, there 
is an upward glance, there is an appeal whose weak- 
ness is its strength, there is a power which descends 



THE TYRANNY OF SOUND. 39 

along the trembling line of an honest prayer, in whose 
might we may all be able to forget the things that 
are behind, and reach out to the things that lie 
before us. 



V. 

THE TYRANNY OF SOUND. 

Hearing is the most tyrannical of the senses. We 
easily shut eyes and mouth against unpleasant sights 
and tastes. We need not handle what is disagree- 
able to the touch. Closed windows and deodorisers 
keep the nose tranquil. " But the tongue can no 
man tame." Wherever I go, unless it be into a 
vacuum, sound, the snake, creeps sinuous in, and 
stings me on the ear. 

There is something fearful in its omnipresence. 
The poet in his garret would write an elegy, but up 
from a neighbour's piano floats a waltz, and his mind, 
that should beat spondaic, flutters off into tricksy 
trochees. " Annie Laurie" plays havoc with the 
accountant's figures. " Shall we have fish for din- 
ner, Edward ? " and the inventor's bright idea is gone 
for ever. 

Of course, the poet may go to the woods, but 
removal is always greater interruption than any 
waltz could be. The accountant may stop his ears, 



40 DONE EVERY DAY. 

but the resultant interior roar is worse than " Annie 
Laurie." The inventor may tell his wife to shut up, 
but his remorse of conscience will check invention for 
an hour, at least. 

And sound, the snake, has a hundred arms, like the 
monster of mythology. You may cut off one arm, 
but two spring up to take its place. Whatever proc- 
ess you follow in diminishing the sound increases 
your sensitiveness in like ratio. If you still a con- 
versation in order to think, a whisper will be greater 
annoyance than the conversation was. If you close 
doors and windows upon a street song, the act has 
drawn every nerve tenser for magnifying the subdued 
strain. 

And if you chance to kill the snake, it haunts you. 
" Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the mem- 
ory/ ' Every one remembers Mark Twain's pathetic 
account of the manner in which the ridiculous rhyme, 
"The conductor when he takes his fare," destroyed 
the mental peace of his entire circle of acquaintances. 
It is seldom that touches so persecute us, or that 
sights so harry us with haunting reproductions. 
Rarely do tastes and odours thus resuscitate them- 
selves. Sound is the most tyrannical of the senses. 

Of course, this is because sound speaks most fa- 
miliarly to the mind. It is the least impersonal of the 
senses. It suggests human presence as readily as 
touch and taste suggest matter. These air vibrations 



THE TYRANNY OF SOUND. 4 1 

are more marvellous than the magic carpet of the 
Arabian Nights, because they not only transport us 
swiftly, but multiply us. By their mischievous aid, 
we can project our individualities at the same time 
into the tense thought of the philosopher, the anxious 
letter of the lover, the complicated designs of the 
capitalist. We may send ourselves wherever air is. 

How recklessly people use this weird power ! I 
shudder at thought of the millions of throbbing heads 
now dotting this din-ful world, the piteous closed 
windows through which dash victorious floods of 
noise, the clattering pavements, grating voices, shrill 
tones assaulting sick-beds, aching brows knit over 
books in fierce despair, the coarse, imperious thought- 
lessness of selfish sound, until as I meditate I long 
to escape out of the quivering air, into the blessedness 
of still space ! 

Thank heaven for the quiet people ! — for the 
people who do not insist on impressing their mood 
on every one else. I am glad to know that Bess is 
happy unto singing, but Bess's bliss is not always a 
mental stimulus. I rejoice to know that Ben, poor 
fellow, notwithstanding his trouble, is able to whistle 
so buoyantly and shrilly ; but there are many things 
besides Ben's cheerfulness about which I should like 
to think this morning. There is no one who does 
not, on occasion, admire and envy the possessor of 
"fine animal spirits." And there is no neighbour 



42 DONE EVERY DAY. 

of one so blest who is not made often to wish those 
spirits a little less animal and more human : a little 
less irrepressibly puppyish, kittenish, and tigrine, and 
more self-contained and thoughtful of others. 

Dear legion of girls, who will sit down this morn- 
ing, light-hearted, deft-fingered, to your " practising/* 
(strange that in this " practical " age that term should 
be all-but-appropriated by you and the doctors ! ) be- 
think yourselves, as your fresh voices or dainty hands 
" scale up and down " with laudable iteration, whether 
it is only fond mamma or watchful music teacher 
whose hours you set beating to your " la-la's " and 
"turn-turn's/' And if you are " practising " on a 
nervous, fretting invalid, on brains trying to think, 
or even on some ugly bachelor who likes to read his 
newspaper in peace, then oh, kind legion, less Chopin 
and more Beethoven, closed windows, back parlour, 
soft pedal, — and there will be more music in the 
world, after all ! 

The careless question, indifferent to what fruitful 
current of thought it splashes in ; droning conversa- 
tion insistently imposed upon wandering-eyed victims ; 
the loud voice characteristic, they say, of us Ameri- 
cans ; the myriad interruptions, so trivial, so potent 
— is the sin less because it is thoughtless ? Is the 
egotism more pardonable because it is unconscious ? 

Why, suppose our bodies as sensitive to the move- 
ments of others as our ears to their sounds. I dance 



THE TYRANNY OF SOUND, 43 

with joy, and set my neighbour, old Mrs. Rheumatic, 
to waltzing. I wring my hands, and Jack Jolly must 
perforce wring his. I shake my fist, and hit that 
stranger across the street. How long before the 
lawyers would make us exceedingly careful how our 
motions set the wonderful air vibrating ? But though 
legal process is sometimes, rarely, invoked against 
church bells and factory whistles, the air is practically 
high sea to every one, and we may strike blows on 
nerves, wring them, or set them to dancing, at our 
lordly will. 

I can imagine various stout, soft-motioned people 
reading this with incredulous sneers. "What a 
terrible ado about nothing ! " Yes, I know you, 
good folk, that you can sleep through a political 
jollification. I have heard of your writing love- 
lyrics next door to boiler factories. My probing 
forefinger has often failed to rouse you from your 
self-communion. You have heard of Sal, stand- 
ing with bare, horny feet on a live coal. To her 
father's exclamation she drawls out, "Which foot, 
paw ? " 

We should like such feet, and such ears, — we, the 
sensitive majority. We envy you your blessed 
stolidity, your abnormal immobility. We must wear 
boots, and gloves, and dark glasses for aching eyes, 
but what shall we wear on our ears, what sound-filter, 
noise-stifler ? How escape the thrall of this tyran- 



44 DONE EVERY DAY. 

nical sense, whose chains are made of necessity and 
civilisation and neighbourliness and courtesy and 
even love ? 

Shall we set out on a crusade of education, and 
teach all who play with noise-explosives what a com- 
plex, delicate, sensitive process all thinking is ? how 
intangible its tools, how elusive its formulae ? Ah ! 
that were a task — to teach the thoughtless what 
thinking means — for which thinkers yet need many 
a year of quiet meditation. Can we divest sounds of 
their appealing personality, invent some philosophical 
charm which shall render them insignificant as the 
drone of bees or splash of waves ? What wealth 
awaits such an invention ! 

No, I can name but one palliative for sound's 
tyranny, and that is love. Love, an absorbing love 
of one's own work, is a castle which the sound- 
legions assault in vain. But love for the sounds 
themselves, born of love for their makers — this 
opens our castle gates, and the sounds come in like 
prattling children, to play half noticed about our feet ; 
tyrannical still, as a laughing babe is tyrannical. 

We are not annoyed by the noise of our own mills, 
our own children, our own voices. And thus the 
only satisfactory conquest of annoying sounds is the 
loving sympathy which makes them as our own. If 
we would not go through this world shrinking mor- 
bidly from its multiform noises, we must know how 



MASTERS OF THE MAIL. 45 

to become interested in the purposes, characters, and 
lives of all men. 

And then only, I think, shall we begin to learn the 
blessedness of sound's omnipresence ; to see how the 
democratic air, pulsating with machine clatter, chil- 
dren's shouts, maiden's light laughter, church bells 
and organ tones, interlaced with the myriad voices of 
nature, is binding all things, with what we have 
called sound's tyranny, close together into the one 
"Republic of God." 



VI. 

MASTERS OF THE MAIL. 

I do not mean masters of the male. That is not 
a disputed matter, if you consider " master " of com- 
mon gender. Nor do I mean postmasters. They 
are slaves of the mail. But are they the only 
slaves? Far from it. I shudder when I read the 
glowing reports of the post-office department. These 
increasing millions of stamps sold and letters carried, 
these cheapened rates and wider facilities, over which 
governmental authorities are so cheerful and party 
orators so exultant, — what are they all but added 
chains about the necks of hundreds of thousands of 
my fellow creatures, whose uneasy lives are more 



46 DONE EVERY DAY. 

and more confined to the conscience pigeon-holes 
of their secretaries ! 

Slaves of the mail ? Why, I wonder whether all 
the sighs that ascended from plantation bondmen 
ever equalled in bulk of unrest the groans of letter- 
galled humanity ! I wonder if all the bricks ever 
made without straw, heaped in one monster pyramid, 
would overtop the worlds pile of letters, written 
when one had nothing to say ! Slaves of the planta- 
tion, you must remember, did useful work. But our 
slaves of the post-office — what time-wasting, nerve- 
shredding, life-desolating efforts are most of theirs ! 

" The heartless wretch ! " shrieks Miss Sukey Sen- 
timent. "How could I exist without my weekly 
letter from Clarinda ? I should not know what she 
is wearing, or making over to wear, or how her head- 
aches are, or what calls she is making or receiving. 
Life would be a blank ! " 

" The uncouth boor ! " exclaims Mrs. Solomon 
Littletodo. "Doesn't he know that letters cement 
and perpetuate friendships, that they enrich us with 
the thoughts and experiences of others, that they 
develop powers of expression, and by the emulation 
of friendly example incite us to culture ? " 

" How he exaggerates ! " cries Mr. Ralph Ready- 
pen. " In half a day I can write up my correspond- 
ence for a month, and spend the rest of my time in 
the delight of reading the answers. He is evidently 



MASTERS OF THE MAIL. 47 

one of these lazy empty-heads who spend two hours 
in thinking how to begin." 

Pardon me, my dear ladies and gentlemen, but I 
was not referring to you. Enjoy, if you can, your 
luxuriant inanities, your prolix sentiments, your light- 
weight missives of lighter-weight brains. You are 
not slaves of the mail, but its fools. You do not 
know what it means to have an epistolary conscience. 

An epistolary conscience ! that wakes us up in the 
night with a start, in order that accusing bands of 
unanswered letters may flap their ghostly sheets at 
us out of the dark ! that hangs on our necks like 
an old man of the sea — of the seal, I should have 
said in the days of wax — and weighs down our 
spirits after our work is done with thought of other 
w r ork to be done, — work that friendship and fashion 
and ethics bid us call enjoyment. 

An epistolary conscience ! that will not rest ignobly 
satisfied with postal cards or even with a double sheet 
of personal gossip ! that scorns the fashionable device 
of inch-high script ! that counts procrastination a 
treason to friendship ! that sees ever floating before 
it the ideal letter-writers of the world, — men and 
women whose epistolary wit and wisdom have added 
all ages to their list of correspondents and made 
Time himself their postman. 

To such people the post-office presents this prob- 
lem : Here am I, a man who delights in making 



48 DONE EVERY DAY, 

friends and keeping them ; a man who needs the 
help that friendships give, and loves to repay, if 
possible, 7 the blessed boon. But in the uneasy state 
of our American population, of which it may with 
certainty be said that if a man is here this year it is 
because he was elsewhere last year, I find my friends 
continually exchanging the friendship of the eye, ear, 
and hand for the friendship of the United States mails. 

Not many years pass by before, with this yearly 
transformation working always outward and never 
backward, the accumulation becomes appalling. I 
review the throng of them. Were these post-office 
friends of mine to return, how many hours a week 
would it require to maintain a fair acquaintance with 
them ? More than any toiler could spare. It takes 
longer to write a letter than to make the most in- 
formal call ; and yet I am expected to maintain an 
epistolary acquaintance with all these people. 

They are noble men and charming women. Yes, 
indeed. The world would be a dismal place without 
their friendship. But in the days before that meddle- 
some Ben Franklin set on foot his pernicious letter- 
hotbed schemes, did friends forget each other then, 
I wonder, though sundered fifty stages ? That 
twenty-six-cent letter once a year, when it came, did 
it not do more to rekindle the fires of love and kindly 
interest than all our thirteen two-cent missives ? I 
trow so. 



MASTERS OF THE MAIL. 49 

In its best estate, the letter is a bald substitute 
for the living voice, the flashing eye, the eloquent 
features. Men can help each other little by corre- 
spondence. What do I care if my friend has just 
bought a new encyclopedia, or had his house freshly 
shingled ? I want to know that he has thoughts of 
me, that he will turn to me for advice and consolation, 
will share with me his greater joys, and give me the 
same companionship when I ask. it. But this comes 
not by way of a monthly eight-page diary. We lived 
together once, and spoke in no dead language to each 
other. A letter a year will paint the cable that binds 
us, will ward off the rust of time, and I ask no more. 

Think, too, of the injustice these importunate 
letters do to our present friends. Why, if every one 
lived up to his mail duties, my friends and I would 
be obliged to fix on some time to walk to the post- 
office together. We should have no other time for 
intercourse. " Better is a neighbour that is near than 
a brother far off." Thus spoke the wisest of men. 
Better is the hearty eye-to-eye of the present than 
the penned narration of the past. While I can talk 
with my wise neighbour over the fence, I shall not 
write up my journal for my friend over the Rockies. 

" This is selfish," you cry in horror, forgetting that 
my friend over the Rockies has, or should have, his 
own fence-comrade, also. Should have, I say, for I 
have small sympathy with those past-tense natures 



50 DONE EVERY DAY. 

which think any second set of friendships rank 
treason to the first. They are ceaselessly " dreaming 
of old friends far o'er the sea." Old friends may be 
best, together with the proverbial old wine and old 
books, but if a man has not brotherly kindness enough 
to be making new friends ever, he has not enough 
brotherly kindness to deserve to retain an old friend. 
Hold to the old friendships, I preach and I practise, 
but hold to them by something stronger than the 
thread which surrounds a packet of trivial letters. 

Oh, fie ! indignant lover, I am not talking to you. 
Her letters are not trivial, though they contain 
nothing more weighty than reports of the weather. 
The most aimless scribbling of that dear hand is 
worth its weight in diamonds, I agree with you. 
Mail-trains should run with extra speed, and mail- 
clerks give heavy bonds for the safe transmission of 
such precious freight. There cannot be too much of 
it, though the big earth be filled with the letters that 
should be writ. 

And oh, fie ! homesick boy, I am not talking to 
you, either. You may sit up two hours a day, after 
work is done, and jerk your eager, yearning pen over 
more space than separates you from father and 
mother, sister and home. It will be good for you, 
and good for them. What a terrible thing homesick- 
ness must have been before Ben Franklin's couriers 
and our express train furnished swift alleviation. 



MASTERS OF THE MAIL. 5 I 

My voice is raised for those, and those alone, who 
with brain and body wearied by long hours of service, 
approach that pigeon-hole crammed with unanswered 
letters as a worn-out slave falters toward a treadmill. 
Friends, let us be slaves no longer, but masters of 
the mail ! There is no greater treason to friendship 
than allowing its joys to become duties. Far better 
a postal card where zest is, than twenty pages inter- 
lined with groans. Far better a circular letter (would 
they were fashionable) with good-will, than a dozen 
special letters with halting will. Far better the im- 
personal typewriter, if it means love, than the most 
characteristic chirography, spun by indifferent fingers. 

Let us say frankly to our correspondents, " Friends, 
as when you were in my town you did not gauge my 
love to you by the number of hours I spent at your 
houses, or the number of words I spoke to you, so 
let us not adopt such mean standards now that we 
are parted. When you were here we passed far 
beyond that uncomfortable stage of formal calls, 
primly alternating, far beyond the time when width 
of smile must match width of smile and each took 
jealous note of the pressure of hands. As in that 
happy time, let us speak only when the heart moves 
us, and for the rest be silent, understood.'' 

Then, the writing of true letters will begin. Then, 
no bank-messenger will carry loads as valuable as the 
postman's. Then, letters will be prized for their 



52 DONE EVERY DAY. 

rarity as now they are dreaded for their frequency. 
They will be handed down as precious heirlooms. 
All slave-work degenerates, but free work grows 
nobler. Then, epistolary giants will appear again on 
earth, for we shall be masters of the mail. 



VII. 
THE ART OF WALKING. 

If men and women were as stupid in their brains 
as in their feet, how ashamed they would be ! If 
their hands so lacked deftness, their tongues alacrity, 
and their souls the faculty of continuance ! 

The foot is the brain's minister of introduction to 
things fair and worthy. Is the forest a balm for the 
heart-ache, is the hilltop a soul-tonic, the sunset 
doubt's medicine, are fresh air and sunshine the com- 
pound elixir of life ? Then how shall they be wealthy 
with health and wisdom whose feet are clogged with 
the criminal cannon-balls of sloth or carelessness, or 
the weakness and disease which spring from these ? 

Hardly greater is the distance that parts the creep- 
ing baby from the strutting man than that between 
the ordinary walker and the owner of real feet. Feet 
are real when, unpierced by "venomed stangs," they 
are able for a series of springing, glad contacts with 
old earth, stretching out over forty miles, say, for a 



THE ART OF WALKING. 53 

day's delight ; able to do it the next day and the 
next, up hill, down dale, over stone, log, or furrow, 
without poisoning the eye's enjoyment or the 
thought's musings with sharp reminders of their 
existence. 

The wise men are now much concerned with dis- 
cussions of manual training. Not at all amiss would 
be as vigorous a discussion of pedal training. In 
anticipation of it, I offer the following pedestrian 
maxims. " Let him who reads " — walk ! 

Imprimis : A purposeful walk is a delightful walk. 
Those who do not know why they walk will never 
know that they enjoy it. 

Health is adequate object for a walk ; and whither- 
soever he walks, the pedestrian always walks toward 
health. 

A fine view is object sufficient. And the more 
miles one has travelled to see fine views, the fewer 
miles does he need to go to see them. Eyes open 
with seeing. 

One does not become a good musician without a 
liking for music, nor a good walker without a love for 
nature. That is the pedestrian appetite. 

The Christian is the best lover of nature ; therefore 
the Christian makes the best walker. 

As the months succeed each other in the year's 
transformations, precisely the same road will furnish 
a dozen different walks. Yes, three dozen ; one for 



54 DONE EVERY DAY, 

morning's freshness, one for the open noon, and one 
for the holy evening. 

Proud science, too, is a handmaid of pedestrianism. 
Have those rock scratches a meaning to you? Is 
there language in the river's windings and the ra- 
vine's incision ? Can you talk with the stony deni- 
zens of yonder ledge ? Have you a passport into the 
insect world, and a letter of introduction to the 
flowers ? Are the stars your friends, so that you 
can tell their faces, — - this, Saturn ; that, a double ; 
a nebula yonder ? Then every walk is a crowded 
panorama of wonder and delight. 

I propose some novel societies. Why not a Sun- 
set Society, to view the great colour revel from Three- 
mile Hill ? or even, for the more daring, a Sunrise 
League ? Why not a Crispin Club, for the indirect 
benefit of the shoemakers, or a Five-mile-a-day Fra- 
ternity ? 

He who walks with a friend sees with four eyes, 
and walks with four feet ; doubles the distance and 
halves the fatigue. A selfish pedestrian walks in a 
tunnel, with muffled eyes and weighted feet. 

In default of a friend, let a book be your walking 
companion. Emerson is for hilltops, Browning for 
roadsides, Lowell for forests, and Shakespeare for 
everywhere. To a wise walker the whole township 
is sacred. " By that brook I read ' In Memoriam ; ' 
on that eminence, ' Heroes and Hero Worship/ " No 



THE ART OF WALKING. 55 

one has truly read the Book who has not read it with 
its unprinted commentary open before him ; read 
David and the meadows together, and let the sun- 
shine make marginal notes on John. 

The skilled walker regards the quality more than 
the quantity of his walking, and knows that a wise 
mile outvalues a foolish league. One whose walking 
is a race, whose watch is ever out to time his speed, 
walk swiftly as he may, w r ill never reach the pedes- 
trian's goal. He has weighted his mind with a ped- 
ometer. On the contrary, all ailments and worries 
keep up with the languid walker. If he moved 
more briskly, they would fall behind. 

If you would walk well, you must eat well, and 
dress well, and think well. 

You must eat well. A walk has higher duties than 
those of the stomach, nobler tasks than to drive away 
dyspepsia. 

You must dress well ; dress for the walk. There 
are those who do not take long walks because of the 
wear of leather ! Body is worth more than boots ; 
the soul, than the sole. And, by the way, (no "by' 
the way" for the highways!) to walk in spike-toed 
shoes is as foolish as to play the piano with buckskin 
gloves or paint a picture blindfold. 

You must think well. Not even a professional 
walker, not even Weston himself, could walk away 
from a bad conscience. 

LrfC. 



$6 DONE EVERY DAY. 

One further requirement, and only one : you must 
have a regular time for walking. What may be done 
at any time will probably be done at no time. If 
men should set apart time for walking as carefully 
as for eating, they would set a much later date for 
the visit of the doctor and the old gentleman with the 
scythe. 

Walking, it will be seen, has ethics, the ethics of 
self-forgetfulness ; it has science, the science of com- 
mon sense ; it has logic, the logic of action ; it has 
religion, the religion of nature. And this is the test 
of it all : On your return do you find that this fair 
world and a little brisk activity in it has beguiled you 
away from your gloomy self, and into a more sensible 
and cheerful mood ? Then you have learned the art 
of walking. 



VIII. 

READING FROM A SENSE OF DUTY. 

- There was a small boy once, who, like most small 
boys, was an ideal reader. He had never heard of 
the One Hundred Best Books, and it wouldn't have 
spoiled him if he had. Flat on the floor in the sun, 
reclined on a slanting roof, or (fantastic but delect- 
able posture ! ) roosting midway up a tall ladder, he 
read from love, not duty. 



READING FROM A SENSE OF DUTY. 57 

Every boy is his own critic. And so this young 
literary dictator set on his right hand Fanny Fern 
and on his left Charles Dickens ; seated Thackeray 
at the foot of the table, and sent George Eliot out 
to eat in the kitchen. If he read " Kenilworth " many 
times, he read " Major Jones's Courtship " at least as 
often. If he yielded his heart to Mrs. Stowe, it was 
with the reservation of a large part of it for Holmes 
(Mary J., not the wise Doctor). 

Ah me ! The sad revolution of a few years ! That 
happy dictator, tumbled headlong from his quondam 
throne, now sits quaking on its bottom step at the 
feet of a sceptred hobgoblin, Onehundredbestbooks 
Rex. He has learned that Tolstoi is approved by 
superior intellects. In an evil hour he has heard 
of Ibsen. He crunches, with long teeth, clerks, 
society belles, social problems, and theological mys- 
teries, dubbed novels, though all the while he is 
half devoured with unconfessed hunger for dark 
moats and clanking armour and secret dungeons, and 
Sir Gilbert to the rescue, ho ! 

But in a moment of sublime daring he has risen 
from that lower step and cries, in desperation, " Why 
read from a sense of duty ? " Duty to whom ? 
Come, tell me ! Duty to whom ? 

Is it to the author ? Oh, those ill-starred books, 
up among the bottles of the literary apothecary's 
shop, ready to be portioned out in doses, though 



58 DONE EVERY DAY. 

they wish (as every book that has meat in it must 
wish) to be in the fragrant pantry, to be nibbled at 
by the small boy on the sly ! 

An author wants to be read from a sense of duty ? 
What must be the sensations of some large-hearted 
man, who had hoped that the product of his thought 
would become the very staff of life — of mental life — 
to others, when he finds it become merely a yard- 
stick, up against which one's discernment and liter- 
ary taste are measured ! " Heigh-ho ! There's so 

much talk about this R 1 El e, I suppose 

I must — seven hundred pages ! Oh, dear me ! " 
Is that fame ? 

And what of the poor, dead authors, whose works 
have become duty-branded classics ? What if dear 
Lamb, from some heavenly window, is able to see 
the dozen, more or less, who are constantly yawning 
over his delicious pages, because, forsooth, he is in 
" the course," — excellent people, devoid of humour, 
tenderness, and imagination, yawning over Lamb ! 
How must his placid spirit be tempted to utterance 
of words not suited to the environment ! 

If, then, one need not read from a sense of duty 
to authors, possibly one should read from a sense of 
duty to other people ? Never ! Never ! Who that 
is a lover of good books has not been annoyed by 
the rabble who are toadies to good books ? who 
put them in conspicuous places in their conversation, 



READING FROM A SENSE OF DUTY. 59 

as they push the visiting-cards of the upper two 
hundred into prominence on their tables. The insuf- 
ferable, unwarranted conceit of these readers from 
duty ! Why, a book-lover is charmed into a blessed 
humility in the presence of his author, and mentions 
him in conversation as one would lift the curtain of 
some precious shrine. Brag of having read Augus- 
tine Birrell ? As soon brag of a savoury stroll through 
a sunny, rich-laden orchard. 

And besides, though some few can talk showily as 
a result of this duty-goaded reading, none can talk 
to edification. Usually the conversation of such 
readers amounts to this : " Have I read the Inmost 
Revelations of Susy Thrilling? Why, of course I 
Every one reads it, you know. Gladstone wrote a 
review of it, you know. Let's see. It came out in 
the Seavell Square Library, didn't it ? Number 
2139. Double number, and forty cents. Splendid, 
wasn't it ? " 

When will people learn that they can't talk help- 
fully or entertainingly about what they do not under- 
stand, and that they cannot understand through a 
sense of duty, or in any way except through sympa- 
thy and love ? What pleasure in hearing people talk 
about their literary loves ! " All the world loves a 
lover." But what is more insipid than an account 
of a literary flirtation ? 

And finally, if one is not to read from a sense of 



60 DONE EVERY DAY. 

duty to the author or to society, it remains to ask 
whether one is not to read from a sense of duty to 
one's self. No, again, and many times, no ! In the 
first place, such reading is not done with the under- 
standing, but with the conscience. Foreign interests 
and thoughts float above the pages of the unlucky 
volume like a shimmering, tantalising veil, through 
which one reads confusedly enough. 

And then, one can't remember books read from 
duty. Ah, mute confession of the book-mark or the 
leaf turned down ! A small boy doesn't forget how 
far he has gone through the dinner, — whether he 
has yet eaten pie or not, for instance, — though, to 
be sure, he may feign forgetfulness, for reasons well 
known to himself. And in the same way one who has 
read with an appetite knows well how far he has read. 

How often we hear the confession, " I have read 
that book, but forgotten all about it ! " If there is 
added the statement, "and yet I liked it very 
much," you may respectfully and silently demur. 
For if there is forgetfulness when interest and 
therefore attention are aroused, the sufferer mani- 
fests a weakness of mind suggestive of an asylum. 
No, take my word for it, though it defies mythology : 
Memory and Love are sister muses. 

Then, too, reading from a sense of duty is directly 
injurious to the reader, because it cultivates an in- 
sidious sort of insincerity. We go into hiding from 



READING FROM A SENSE OF DUTY. 6 1 

ourselves and others. We put the Atlantic Monthly 
on our library table when Life, Puck, or Judge are in 
our heart, and most often in our hands. We pretend 
to admire realism, when we know we idolise romance. 
We bow with a traitor's lying heart at the throne of 
Onehundredbestbooks Rex. We speak finically of a 
"chaste literary conscience," while our own honest 
monitor is imploring us to make a clean breast of 
our fondness for Mark Twain and our detestation of 
Tolstoi. And we lie so often to others that at last 
we convince ourselves. 

And now by insisting thus that reading should 
spring from liking and not from a sense of duty, I 
seem to have plunged into a dilemma, — an alarming 
one. For suppose we do not like the right kind 
of literature? I do not take into consideration 
vicious and criminal books, mark you. Probably 
even reading from a sense of duty is less of a crime 
than the reading of such books ! But in case one 
does not like the best books, should he not read 
them, anyway, from a sense of duty, and try to 
learn to like them ? 

Before I answer that question, let me say that 
your dislike may not be your fault, but the author's. 
We should have less reading from a sense of duty, if 
the best authors always had a realising sense of their 
duty, which is, at starting, to interest. Yes, even to 
make prefaces attractive, high though the ideal be. 



62 DONE EVERY DAY. 

Did not Lowell succeed in writing for the " Biglow 
Papers" a preface whose wit was worthy of the vol- 
ume, and, marvel of marvels, a witty index ? 

But if the author has character and force and 
sparkle, and should interest you, but does not, then 
must you not read from a sense of duty ? No, not 
even then. "But will not the best books," you ask, 
" read dutifully though painfully, develop a taste for 
themselves ? " Develop a taste ! Is good literature 
buttermilk or tobacco ? I do not like your meta- 
phor. I will answer your question with a pleasanter 
one. I believe that while a young man is in love 
with a certain young woman, no course of forced 
acquaintance and marriage with another girl will 
"develop" a union worth the parson's fee. In other 
words, to which I ask your best attention, because 
they make my climax and conclusion : 

I believe that when one likes inferior books and 
does not like the best, no easy process of substituting 
best books for inferior reading will lead to right love 
of the best, but that the life must be changed, and 
the books will follow the life. No one ever led an 
" Old Sleuth " life and read Shakespeare to profit, or 
a Shakespeare life and liked "Old Sleuth." If you 
have the Forum on your table and the Police Gazette 
in your heart, don't put the Police Gazette on the 
table, — that is not the moral of this essay, I hope! 
— but get the Forum into your heart. 



READING FROM A SENSE OF DUTY. 63 

Book-likings follow life, they seldom lead it. Your 
choice of books is an index to your character, and if 
you change your index without changing your char- 
acter, you have gained only a lying index. Become 
modest, simple, thoughtful, and you will demand 
these qualities in your books. Develop an affec- 
tionate interest in human life about you, its humour, 
pathos, and tragedy, and you will come to like Shake- 
speare and history. Try to help others and to pray, 
and you will hunger for the Bible. Use your eyes, 
and you will require science. 

So that one must live one's way into a love for 
good literature, and it must come gradually. Yet 
ever as it comes, by a subtle reaction which it would 
be folly to deny, the helpful books stimulate the life, 
enlarge it, concentrate it, make it sincere and thor- 
ough and enjoyable. Book-reviewers used to say 
that such a book was one " which every gentleman 
should have in his library." Now they have advanced 
to the eulogy, "a book which every one should read." 
And there's a good time coming when the formula 
of highest praise will run : " It's a book which every 
one should like ! " 

THE END. 



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